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Dominion history
, a Founder.]] The 'history of the 'Dominion begins with the history of the Founders as recorded in the memory of the Great Link. Several millennia ago, Changelings roamed the stars searching out other races so they could add to their knowledge of the galaxy. According to the Founders, they originally went in peace but were too often met with suspicion, hatred and violence. Solids, fearing the Changelings' morphic abilities, beat, hunted and killed them. (DS9: "The Search, Part II") :It is unclear if the stories the Founder told Odo of Changeling persecution are true or if they were created solely for Odo's benefit. Changelings seem to be immune to attacks by blunt force or solid weapons (DS9: "Emissary", "Chimera") and are virtually impossible to detect if they choose to hide (DS9: "The Adversary"), and hence it would require that energy weapons and advanced technology existed millenia ago in the hands of their persecutors to successfully detect, hunt, and kill them, which seems incongruous with the Founders later achieving such complete control of the quadrant. Changelings do seem vulnerable if they are in solid form and are taken unaware (DS9: "Vortex"), so Changelings in the past may have indeed been surprised, beaten, and persecuted. On the other hand, given that the only source for this story is the Founder herself, and given that she lied or withheld other information about her people, it could also be that the Founders established the Dominion solely to "impose order on a chaotic universe" and the story of persecution was created solely to present a more sympathetic image to Odo. Alternatively, the true answer could be somewhere in the middle. According to Dominion legend, on one planet, a group of Vorta — a species of small, timid, ape-like forest dwellers living in hollowed-out trees — hid a Changeling from an angry mob, and in return the Changeling promised that one day they would be transformed into powerful beings and placed at the head of a vast interstellar empire. (DS9: "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River") :Eris, a Vorta field commander from "The Jem'Hadar" suggested that the Vorta homeworld is Kurill Prime. Her story that the Jem'Hadar conquered her people was false, however, and so this information may have been part of the deception. It is also possible that Weyoun's story of the Vorta's origins is entirely or partially untrue. .]] Following their retreat to the Founders' homeworld inside the Omarion Nebula, the Changelings sought to ensure that they would never again be at the mercy of the solids by imposing "order upon a chaotic universe" around them. Over time, the Founders sent out 100 infant Changelings in order to continue gathering information and explore. It was genetically coded into these infants for them to return later and share what they have learned. Odo and Laas were amongst them. (DS9: "The Search, Part II", "Chimera") Domination of the Gamma Quadrant The founding of the Dominion, itself, occurred between the tenth and second millennia BCE. (DS9: "To the Death") It was at this time, the Founders first employed Vorta as their administrators, diplomats, scientists, and commanders. To enforce their will, the Founders engineered the Jem'Hadar, a species specifically designed for warfare. (DS9: "The Search, Part I & Part II", "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River") The Jem'Hadar became the Dominion's first line of defense. (DS9: "What You Leave Behind") :In "The Dogs of War", Weyoun 8 stated that the Dominion hasn't surrendered in battle since it was founded ten thousand years ago. This contradicts the date of 2,000 years stated by Weyoun 4 in "To the Death", which seems to be corroborated with what the Female Changeling said regarding the Jem'Hadar in "What You Leave Behind". The Vorta and the Jem'Hadar under their command rapidly began to conquer space, in the name of the Founders. The Dominion ability to mass-produce soldiers, weapons, and ships gave them a substantial advantage, particularly in wars of attrition. In the mid-22nd century, the Dominion encountered a space-faring race in Teplan system. The Teplans believed nothing was beyond their ability, including resisting the Dominion. In response, the Jem'Hadar came and left their homeworld crushed, as an example to others. More than anything, the Dominion wanted the Teplans to bear the mark of their defiance, so they unleashed a biological weapon, establishing the disease known as the blight. (DS9: "The Quickening") The Dominion also made a similar example of the inhabitants of Boranis III. (DS9: "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges") Around 2340, the Dominion conquered a race, native to Yadera Prime, known as the Yaderans. (DS9: "Shadowplay") In 2370, the Jem'Hadar invaded and conquered a race known as the T-Rogorans. (DS9: "Sanctuary") Contact with the Alpha Quadrant , a Vorta operative.]] The first official contact between the Dominion and the United Federation of Planets came at the end of 2370, when Jem'Hadar forces destroyed a number of ships and colonies from the Alpha Quadrant side of the Bajoran wormhole and took Benjamin Sisko and Quark hostage. The Jem'Hadar claimed that the offensive was in response to incursions into their territory. (See: New Bajor, [[USS Odyssey|USS ''Odyssey]]) However, the offensive was actually a cover to plant Eris, a Vorta spy, into the Federation. The attempt was unsuccessful, though Eris escaped back to the Dominion. The Dominion-Federation Cold War was officially begun. (DS9: "The Jem'Hadar") In the next year, the Dominion ascertained the resistance of the major powers in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants to a Dominion invasion through an elaborate simulation involving the captured members of the [[USS Defiant (NX-74205)|USS ''Defiant]]. Based on these simulations (which showed that Starfleet would destroy the wormhole if necessary), the Dominion adopted a more subtle approach. Changelings infiltrated various powers, including the Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Star Empire, posing as high-ranking officials. These agents maneuvered these powers into several destructive conflicts to erode their strength (See: Battle of the Omarion Nebula, Klingon-Cardassian War, Second Federation-Klingon War) Between 2371 and 2373, only a few of these infiltrators were ever exposed: one posed as Ambassador Krajensky, one posed as General Martok, and another one posed as Doctor Julian Bashir. None of the four changelings on Earth could be apprehended despite sweeping security precautions. (DS9: "The Search, Part II", "The Adversary", "Paradise Lost", "In Purgatory's Shadow") The Dominion War , a Jem'Hadar soldier.]] In 2373, the Dominion vastly solidified its foothold in the Alpha Quadrant by incorporating the Cardassian Union, in a pact negotiated by Gul Dukat. In the following months the Dominion sent massive numbers of ships and troops through the wormhole into Cardassian space, after the changeling posing as Bashir sabotaged the Federation's attempt to collapse the wormhole.In addition, the Dominion massacred the Maquis and signed nonaggression pacts with the Miradorn, the Tholian Assembly, Bajor, and the Romulan Star Empire. Open war finally broke out when Starfleet mined the entrance of the wormhole to prevent any further Dominion reinforcements from coming through. (See: Dominion War) (DS9: "In Purgatory's Shadow", "Blaze of Glory", "Call to Arms") The first part of the war, in early 2374, was a disaster for the allied Federation and Klingon forces, which were forced into retreat on nearly all fronts. The war turned in the allies' favor when a massive fleet of 2,800 Jem'Hadar warships, which would have ensured a Dominion victory, disappeared inside the wormhole. This unexpected event allowed the recapture of the strategic starbase Deep Space 9 by the allies. The Dominion's situation was further worsened when the Romulans abrogated their treaty and joined the war against them later that year. (DS9: "A Time to Stand", "Sacrifice of Angels", "In the Pale Moonlight") Meanwhile, the Founders and their Great Link found that they had been infected with a morphogenic virus, which threatened to destroy the very foundation of the Dominion. Despite the resources at their disposal, the Founders could not discover a cure. The Female Changeling, trapped in the Alpha Quadrant, forged an alliance with the Breen Confederacy in late 2373 to win the war before her death. However, the terms of their treaty of alliance were extremely unfavorable to the Cardassians, which finally led to a rebellion. The subsequent betrayal of the Dominion fleet by the Cardassians at the Battle of Cardassia, which came as a result of Dominion reprisals against Lakarian City, would seal defeat for the Dominion in the war. (DS9: "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River", "Strange Bedfellows", "What You Leave Behind") Surrounded by allied forces on Cardassia Prime, the dying Female Changeling defiantly ordered her forces to fight to the death, believing that to show weakness would lead to the solids invading the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant. She eventually agreed to surrender after Odo linked with her and cured her of the virus. Odo subsequently returned to the Great Link to cure the rest of his people, while the Female Changeling remained in the Alpha Quadrant to assume responsibility for the war. (DS9: "What You Leave Behind") de:Geschichte des Dominion History, Dominion Background/Apocrypha In various interviews in Star Trek: The Magazine, the producers suggested that the Dominion had been well aware of the Federation for some time prior to their "official" first contact, and that the Changelings had been laying long-range plans to deal with the percieved Federation threat. If events had proceeded as originally planned, the Dominion would have struck "out of nowhere" and quickly crushed an unprepared Federation. However, the discovery of the Bajoran wormhole by Starfleet much earlier than anticipated threw off their timetable. The Dominion War, as brutal as it had been, was apparently a "holding action" by the Dominion.